


Kalex Week 2018 Fics (not Comics)

by Alsike



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: D&S Themes, F/F, Kalex Week, POV First Person, Possessive Behavior, Red Kryptonite, Unplanned Pregnancy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-15
Updated: 2018-10-16
Packaged: 2019-08-02 15:14:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,199
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16307606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Alsike/pseuds/Alsike
Summary: Fics for Kalex Week 2018Chapter 1: Monday & Wednesday Prompts Combined





	1. The Journal of Director Danvers, 2019

It is the eighteenth day since Kara was exposed to redK. No one knows where it came from, but we've been unable to quarantine her for long enough to find out or to allow the exposure to wear off.

I've reduced her priority level to 3. Perhaps that sounds like giving up, but I can't risk my people trying to bring her in. When she's ready, she'll come back. She isn't killing anyone. She's not even making threats. I can't rationalize the expenditure of resources.

Of course I'm worried about her, but she comes to taunt me and mock my impotence regularly enough that I expect I will know if she gets in trouble.

After the fourth time she came to taunt me, I got tired of being frightened and upset by her words.

She has a new tack this round of RedK. The 'I've never thought of you as a sister' is still in frequent play. But it's often followed by the 'but did you _like_ thinking of me as your sister when you fantasized about me? Of course you wanted me. You, the baby lesbian, lusting after the alien you called your sister, no wonder you repressed it all.'

It had felt like a slap the first time she said it. Shock. Disgust.

How could she have even wondered that?

Could it be true?

She kept saying it. And that was the hard thing to face. The things that she says while she's on RedK are the things that preoccupied her when she isn't. It must have been worrying her.

I hate that I didn't know these things were worrying her.

I can't talk to Kara. I can't reassure her that my love for her has nothing to do with my sexuality. It's bigger than that. It's always been bigger than that. Attraction has never been that important to me, or I wouldn't have been able to ignore it for almost thirty years. Kara has always been important to me.

But I can't say these things to Kara.

I only can speak to the RedK.

Kara on RedK is sexual in a way Kara was only ever sensual, she's overt in ways Kara was shy. It puts me on the defensive. When she mocks me for wanting her, I laugh. Pot calling the kettle black I say. You wouldn't be so upset about the idea of me wanting you if _you_ didn't want _me_.

I would never have said that to Kara, but this monster of RedK isn't Kara. I tell myself that. When I said that, she nearly broke my arm again. But she held back at the last moment.

She came back two days later, pushed me against the wall and kissed me.

You're right, she said.

You're right.

I'd never believed I could have been right. Even now I'm sure that it's a long term trap, that she's just saying that to put me off my guard, get under my skin.

I'm writing this down in case she turns. I need someone to know if she kills me or takes me somewhere I can't get back from.

I need to confess.

I didn't refuse her.

She comes to me now, with heat in her eyes, they glow red, and she touches me and traces Kryptonese sigils on my skin. She is never gentle. She leaves bruises on me, twists and breaks me in her excitement. She is excited. She looks at my body like it is a forbidden delight, and she devours me.

She isn't Kara.

I'm not fucking Kara.

I am.

 

It is the twenty-second day since Kara was exposed to RedK. She is planning something grandiose, I know, I keep my people apprised. They are watching and waiting.

Every night Kara comes to me and explores the depths of my body, touches me in ways no one has. I pleasure her. I have spent hours on my knees between her legs, waiting--hoping, that this time she might forget my puny human strength and break my neck between her thighs.

At least then when Kara comes back--

No. There is no way to avoid this. She will be broken.

Whatever I've done, whatever I am doing, I would never want her to bear the guilt of my death.

 

RedK Kara never spends the night. I'd begun to suspect that she needed to reexpose herself to the RedK every morning or it would wear off enough that my Kara would reassert herself and take control.

But I don't know anymore. I don't know anything anymore.

Kara stayed last night. I don't know how, but I must have worn her out enough with that last orgasm that she fell asleep beside me. Sunlight woke me, and Kara was purring, still asleep, warm in my arms.

Alex, she murmured as she woke, and touched my cheek with a gentleness that cut me to the core.

It was my Kara. It sounded like my Kara.

I ached between my legs, wore her fingerprints as marks on my skin, and Kara lay beside me, in the morning sun.

Then she seemed to realize--what, I don't know? That she was naked? That the RedK was wearing off? That she'd been vulnerable at my side all night? I don't know, and she was gone in a flash.

She'd been vulnerable at my side all night. I keep Kryptonite in my apartment. I hadn't even tried to capture her.

 

It has been three months since Kara was exposed to RedK. She visits me less now, but when she comes she is excited and pleased to play a familiar instrument, make me cry out, let me please her. I look forward to her visits. She tells me what she is doing sometimes, when we lay together afterwards.

She has a plan to rule the world, but she is smarter now, subtler. She has been appointed assistant to the vice president. She will step into the leadership role when the time comes. She is ready.

She holds me when she tells me this, looks for my support in a way that reminds me of my Kara. So I give it to her, remind her to watch her back, remind her that trust is a luxury she cannot afford. She is pleased and makes love to me gently after I show care for her.

I do care for her.

She's still Kara.

I know that now, childish and pleased at turns, but sultry and glorying in her power at others. The joy is still there, though turned in strange ways.

I love her.

 

It has been four months since Kara was exposed to RedK. She is vice president now. She is pushing, but being kept in check somehow. She comes even less frequently, and sometimes it seems she comes only to sleep, pawing me halfheartedly and then curling into my back, wrapping her arms around me and dozing off.

She still leaves before morning.

Sometimes, though, she wakes me, and we make love then.

She is proud and possessive of me.

I like that.

 

I've been getting sick in the mornings. It's vile and reliable, and I thought it was a stomach bug at first, then stress, but I know better now.

I'm pregnant.

Maggie would have said, you've had eighteen weeks of unprotected sex with an alien, you don't have the right to be surprised. But I am.

I cry a lot. It's embarrassing, but I don't know what else to do.

What do I tell Kara?

Any day the attack will come, she will unite the world under her fist.

Any day now.

Do I say -- have you considered an heir?

Do I want to have a child with this Kara?

Would I have wanted one if my Kara and I had ever found our way to each other?

I didn't even know I wanted that, but now I know. If I were on RedK I know what I would say to her-- you never loved me enough, you kept so much of yourself from me, I would have done anything for you, I still would, I wish you could see me with the same focus I see you.

They're stupid thoughts, because I know my Kara loved me, but I still have them. That's what RedK is, the thoughts you have that you know are false, that you don't even mean. I think she probably didn't mean to want me.

No matter how much you have, sometimes you want more.

 

I told her.

She almost killed me.

She believed me eventually, that I hadn't been sleeping with a man on the side, that I was carrying her child. All of her darkest thoughts, that I'd done this to manipulate her, that I was trying to ruin all her plans, they rose up, furious and fierce. She screamed them at me, then looked at me, her eyes vague like they were when she used her x-ray vision.

Then she was gone.

 

It's been three months. She's still gone.

 

Two weeks ago, my people found Kara in the mountains, her powers blown out, half starved and half dead. She's been in the DEO since on the sunbeds in a medically induced coma, while her body heals.

I've gotten used to this pregnancy thing. I haven't had to go in the field much after becoming director, but I still run ops. I tell my boys to get used to seeing pregnant women in the workplace, and if they think it's a disability to get the fuck off my base.

The scans are good. It's got girl parts, and ten fingers and ten toes, already. It has some superpowers too, that I have right now also.

I want Kara to wake up before I have it.

I want Kara to wake up.

I'm so afraid of Kara waking up.

 

Kara didn't wake up before I had her. She woke up during it. The screaming, I think, shook her out of her months-long nap.

I've been shot and I've been stabbed, but there is nothing as fucking painful as having a baby. That is a medical incident I would like to never go through again. The trauma put me on full bed-rest for three days. I was up and about faster when I'd had four broken bones.

Kara staggered out of her room like the walking dead, and found me, screaming like a Tzlakian was feasting on my innards, and nearly killed the doctor. She did not, and I had the baby then passed the fuck out.

They let her hold it.

I don't know who thought that was a good idea. But they did.

She didn't let them take it away.

She was still there, holding our baby when I finally woke up.

She looked up, and smiled at me. "Have you thought about names yet?"

 

Kara has a lot of grief for what she did and said to me while on RedK. But I think she's more at peace now. In the end she knew she could not handle having a baby with me while she was on the edge of all her emotions like she was on RedK. She needed to be in control, and she destroyed the store she'd been visiting.

That was how she'd blown out her powers.

I told her how sorry I was for not refusing her, that she was impaired, that she could not consent. She said she was glad I didn't, because she would not have listened, she would have taken me anyway, and she hates that about herself, and is relieved she didn't have to face having done it.

She is sorry, but there is joy in her again.

I don't know what she did while VP, but the government is much fairer, making changes and solving problems. Astra would have been proud.

And she has a daughter.

She keeps her in a sling nearly all the time, under her cape when she is out helping people, bringing her to me for feeding and cuddles. She is light on her feet and all of National City rejoiced when Supergirl returned.

There is no pretense between us.

We are not sisters.

We have a child.

I don't know if I will ever be able to not want to kiss her when she smiles, not want to bend over for her when she beckons.

This journal is the only place I will admit that I miss RedK Kara, how she took what she wanted.

How what she wanted was me.

 

"I don't know if I ever would have sorted out my own jealousy without the RedK," Kara told me. "I repress a lot."

"I don't want you to have to hold anything back around me."

"I know," Alex.

She is so kind. Her fingers have been in places that no one has ever entered before. She once sprained three ligaments in my knee when she was too excited about bringing my leg up over her shoulder so she could penetrate me more deeply.

She is so kind.

"I want to make love to you again."

She says it quietly, when we are alone, when our child is asleep. She says it when she is in a tousled sweater with spit-up on the shoulder. She says it when her eyes are lazy with sleep, but lazy in a way that looks like the lust she wore so blatantly when on RedK.

I nod. "Okay."

 

I don't now how I could have agreed. I don't know what it will be like. It isn't RedK Kara. Will she push me around like I'm used to? Will she demand what she wants? If she's shy, if she's hesitant, I won't be able to touch her. I know that. I've never been able to do anything to her unless she was enthusiastically consenting.

Or endangering herself.

Or on drugs.

 

She slips in at night and doesn't wake me--if I sleep at all when I know she's out there, in danger. She curls up behind me, and is slow to wake when the baby cries, but quick to respond once she does.

I wake up with her sprawled over me, like she did when on RedK, but easier, warm and comfortable. It's fear, I realize. On RedK, all of her fears took over, her certainty that I'd betray her, her insecurities about my sexual awakening. The way she held me, firm and systematic and reliable, it was fear. Now she sprawls over me, she's gentle and relaxed. I love her, and she loves me, and she isn't afraid of it.

The baby sleeps well in the morning--Kryptonians love the sun. Kara purrs into my shoulder, her hands find my breasts. I stiffen. She draws me closer, nibbling at my neck. Her hand slides up under my shirt, across the skin of my no-longer well-defined stomach. "You want this?" she asks.

I swivel around to face her, tell her yes, and she grasps my wrists and pins them above my head, she kneels over me, holding me down, her hands find their favorite places. She is unafraid, and manhandles me without hesitation. Her mouth is rough and eager. The sunlight gleams off her hair and makes her skin glow.

I struggle, wanting nothing more than to touch her back.

She won't let me, not yet.

I am overjoyed.

 

 _Note to self:_ _take Plan B. Have a suspicion that combination of sex and sunlight may result in fertilization of Kryptonian's partner. Priority:_ _develop_ _K_ _ryptonian_ _-resistant_ _birth_ _-_ _control_ _._


	2. In the Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kara wants what's best for everyone. Unless there's something she wants more.

After Mon-El was well and truly gone and Maggie had been out of the picture for long enough that Kara was sure she wasn't coming back, Kara felt herself start to relax. Though she felt bad about it, Kara was pleased that Sam was gone also. It was a quiet little selfishness that she'd never felt before, but in these past few months she'd grown familiar with the worm of thwarted possession that curled in her stomach.

She hadn't known what it was at first, not with Maggie. It had been a bitter taste on her tongue, an ugliness, a dislike. It had been frustrating, unpleasant, when Maggie had turned out to be kind, to be generous. Kara had been wrong, and if she was wrong there had to be a reason for it. What was that reason?

It hadn't been until she'd met Imra, beautiful and sweet, and still Kara had hated her, that Kara had known what it was. Possessiveness. Mon-El was hers, she'd suffered for him, grieved for him, and now _this_ woman laid claim? But Mon-El had been faithless to his wife. He would have chosen  Kara if she had let him. Discovering that had made her not want him anymore. She wasn't his. And she did not care if he was hers.

Lena was hers also, but so was James, so their affection for each other was no threat. But Sam was her own.  Everyday- Kara was happy to have Sam as a new friend. But she was not happy when Alex looked at her, when Alex was soft with Ruby, when Alex made herself pretty, trying to match Sam's type of pretty, tried to make herself into part of that little family.

_No_ , Kara had heard herself think. No. Alex was  _her_ family, not Sam's. If Alex wanted a Kryptonian, she  could have a real one, a  _house_ Kryptonian, not a biological construct, a violent mutant, a tool. She was  _Kara's._ She had no right to give those eyes, that sort of affection, to something  _lesser_ .

They were vile thoughts,  RedK thoughts, not something Kara would ever say, and she hated even thinking them. But nonetheless, she was glad when Sam and Ruby left. 

T hen Alex cut her hair and made herself into a queer girl's trophy, and Kara found herself furious again.

She wanted her Alex back. The one who had complained about dating boys and been secretive and restrained, but had never been anything but wholly focused on Kara. Alex was  _hers._ It was selfish, but she wanted her back.

Kara kept it to herself, stayed quiet. She was supportive and happy and enthusiastic for Alex.  She wanted to know how the dating was going, but she only wanted to hear about the bad dates. Hearing that it was good, that Alex liked someone, that she was happy, it made her sick.

Even though she knew it was selfish, she knew it was letting her darker thoughts control her actions, Kara did not put herself aside. Right now, Alex had no one to put ahead of her, and she would keep it that way. Friday nights were hers. When Alex made noises about wanting to go out, wanting to try a new club, Kara would enthusiastically invite herself along. Winn was gone, Lena was busy with James. She needed Alex, she was lonely, Alex wouldn't leave Kara at home if she was lonely.

Kara found herself in new places \--queer spaces, similar in some ways to alien spaces, and in some ways not.  She didn't want to embarrass Alex, who had taken to wearing soft loose jeans and long-sleeved t-shirts to go out in. Sometimes it would get so hot in the clubs that she'd peel out of her t-shirt and tie it around her waist, revealing wiry arms and a black singlet.  She looked right, fit in. Having perky cardigan-wearing Kara Danvers along with her would not help Alex blend into this new world.  So Kara kept her eyes open,  found herself glamming up in a different way than she was used to. More dramatic lipstick, heavier eye-shadow, short skirts and high heels. She didn't have to look like a nice girl there, and she liked not looking like a nice girl.

Kara saw the looks  Alex got when she took off her shirt. She saw the looks she got too. She got asked to dance by women with short hair and stubborn jaws, almost daring themselves to speak to her. Sometimes she said yes. If Alex was dancing, if she was busy, she'd say yes.

Then she started going on her own.

Alex didn't like going out all that much. Tinder and getting hit on at coffee shops--which happened way more often than Kara would have believed--was her way of meeting new people. She was doing well with it, making friends, going on dates. It was hard to meet people at clubs, too loud. She didn't like casual sex, and after the debacle in grad school she was careful about her drinking. Kara didn't have to be careful in the same way. 

T he second time  Kara went out on her own, she went home with a woman. 

"What do you like?" the woman asked, and so Kara told her, explicitly, what she could have without fearing that she'd damage her partner. After that, she went home with someone every time she went out. She said what she wanted, and if they didn't listen, she didn't stay. But mostly, they listened. They _liked_ to listen to her. The women who she went home with were the ones who pretended to be tough, but had an alertness to them, a reactiveness, that made it all too clear that they were waiting for her cues, responsive to her-- _like Alex._

She fucked them, and let them please her. She learned about toys and which ones were resilient enough to bounce back from the pressure she coul d apply. She learned that 

s he liked sex with women, more than she'd liked it with the Daxamian. It was pleasant and pleasurable and filthy in a way that made her possessiveness, her selfishness--wanting not just Alex, but Alex's world, her experiences, her  _life_ to be Kara's--uncurl and stretch out. It  _was_ hers. Everything that Alex was belonged to her. 

Alex belonged to her.

She just didn't know it yet.

 

Then one night she was out, three women and one trans man fawning over her, buying her drinks and commenting on how well she could hold her liquor, and she looked over and saw Alex staring at her.

Alex wasn't supposed to know about this.

But why did it matter ? She wasn't doing anything wrong.

Kara leaned in close to one of the women she'd slept with before, letting her lips brush over her cheek, accepted the man's fresh drink--she'd slept with him before also , and ignored Alex. Alex hadn't told her she was coming, she hadn't wanted Kara there. Kara didn't want her there either.

Alex got a drink. 

Kara could hear her heartbeat, faster than usual, as she moved around, not coming too close but staying near. Watching her.

Kara put on a show.

Dancing and kissing her friends, accepting advances from others. She was comfortable here. This was her place-- more than Alex's. She  _owned_ it.

And then there was a moment, wher e Kara's friends were elsewhere and she was alone in the dark of the club  by the bar  and she heard Alex's heartbeat, the quick paced doubletap.

The bartender moved up behind her. "A drink for you," she passed it over with that quirk of a smile that she gave when Kara got a new admirer. Kara took it, sipped it--the sharpness of seltzer, mint and lemon, no alcohol--it was what Alex would mix for her when she was drinking something hard and Kara had still protested the taste of alcohol.

She looked over, giving Alex the nod, acknowledging that the drink was acceptable and her presence would be accepted also.

Alex was only in a singlet already tonight, her pale arms vivid in the dim lighting. She did not get out into the sun enough. Her hair was flipped over one side, baring the short cut on the other. She wore no make-up. She was transfixing.

"Why are you here?" Alex asked, her tone sharp. "Why are you doing this?"

Internally, Kara flinched , though outside she showed nothing . Alex was nothing if not straightforward.  U sually Kara could bring herself to be honest  in return . But here she was used to wearing a mask. She liked the mask she wore here, the one where her desires were not shameful, where she could hide her vulnerabilities and weaknesses behind selfishness and physicality and  _control_ .

Alex didn't want her to wear that mask. Alex expected something else.

But  Alex had bought her a drink.

Kara tilted her head, looking at her human through lowered lashes. "That's no way to flirt, Alexandra."

Alex went white and then red. She swiveled away on her barstool, holding her drink between both hands.

"I suppose I'm here because I like the company," Kara added, answering Alex's question without  _answering_ it.

There was a tightness in Alex's mouth--anger? hurt? "Do you prefer it to mine?"

"I'm not sure they're comparable."

"Why not?"

"I don't have sex with you."

Alex looked  shocked, then  drained, and inside Kara  _knew_ that this was wrong, she was behaving wrong. Her and Alex's relationship was based on intimacy, and she was being cold, holding herself aloof. 

But Alex had approached her here, not on their couch, not at the DEO. She'd bought her a drink. It wasn't the same.  _Kara_ wasn't the same here.

"You come here for _sex_?" Alex sounded choked, but it wasn't the horrified older sister choke. There was something else in it too. Perhaps it was only selfishness speaking, but Kara wanted it to be jealousy.

Kara thought. "No," she said finally.  "I come here . . . because I like who I am here. But other people like that too, and so sometimes they invite me home."

"You . . . like who you are here." Finally, Alex turned to look at her again. Her tone was wistful, and a little bemused.

Kara nodded, turning to gaze at Alex, contemplate the tiredness in her face. "Don't you?"

T here was a moment,  where  Alex was looking at her and her  tiredness  became pensiveness . Kara didn't know what  Alex saw when she looked at Kara here . She wasn't Alex's Kara, not the one she was used to, and yet Alex still softened, as if whatever Kara did or said she  _was_ still Alex's Kara, the one person Alex trusted above everyone else. 

She'd trusted her on RedK, trusted her not to hurt her, and even though Kara  _had_ hurt her, damage d her heart and her bones, the trust hadn't gone away.

Alex shook her head. "I came here because I was supposed to be able to be myself here. But I'm not myself. I'm looking for something I don't want."

"Then why are you here tonight?" It  could have been a pick-up line, but it wasn't , that dynamic was gone, Kara had lost th e self that emerged in the darkness of the club . Alex was honest, open to Kara, and Kara had no choice, she felt herself shift into the Kara Alex knew, the Kara who  _loved_ Alex, didn't  want to own her. Alex needed taking care of, and whether or not Alex appreciated it, that was what Kara would do.

Alex turned away, curling into herself. "I can't find whatever it is I'm looking for anywhere else."

She seemed so weak, in a place where Kara was strong.  Kara leaned into her, letting their shoulders touch . With both in sleeveless shirts, the brush of tacky skin was electric, and she heard Alex catch her breath.

Again, the moment was back, the strangeness, the way their dynamic was different in this different place.

Kara leaned in, breathing into her ear. "What are you looking for?" Anything could be a pick-up line, Kara had learned. It had to do with tone, letting her voice go low and smiling as she said the words,  making her  wanting clear .

Alex went tense, skittish. "I don't know." She drew back, crossing her arms, defending. But then she looked up, and again, seeing that it was Kara broke through her walls. She sagged. "I thought I had it with Maggie, but then she said yes, she said I want you for good, and the feeling came back, the panic and emptiness. So I said kids, but spending time with Sam and Ruby-- it wasn't kids. So I came here, but it wasn't sex, it wasn't community. I don't know what it is."

Alex had always been empty in some important way.  She filled herself up by striving. Once she had something, the striving no longer necessary, she emptied out again. But Kara had always valued that hole in her. It was like a glove. Kara could slip her hand inside it, direct Alex, bring her back when she was going away.  L ately,  Kara had been hesitant about taking control, drawing Alex back into her orbit. She had sealed up Kara's usual access with other people, other loves. But it was open now, raw. If Kara touched her, it would soothe but also bring pain.

M aybe there was fear there too. If she slid herself into that emptiness, would Alex be satisfied for a moment and then want something more?

The mirror to her selfishness turned and presented  itself . She wanted Alex to be hers, but Alex was headstrong, always going where she didn't want Kara to follow. That was why she couldn't  reach out and  take her. What if she wasn't enough? What if Alex wouldn't keep her?

Had she always been so afraid?

 

"Kara!" a thrilled voice, a woman--Kara didn't remember her name, Alyssa, Andrea,  ' an A, not Alex, ' was all she knew--she'd gone home with a few weeks before. "Nat said you were here, and then I saw you, and you weren't speaking to anyone, I had to take the chance."

The abruptness of her arrival when Kara wasn't the Kara who belonged here, when she was the quiet one, the vulnerable one, who had lost too much to dare, was jarring. She'd gone home with this woman, enjoyed her advance s , an d the way she'd gone flushed and hot when Kara had pressed her against the wall and kept her there, not touching her. This woman liked to be the boss, but she'd liked it more when Kara didn't let her be. Her presence had an authority to it . Before it had excited Kara, made her sharpen and shield herself in response, but for Kara, like this, it had hit like Cat Grant always had, in the gut, making her bend.

"Excuse me," Alex snapped at her. 

The woman turned a long dismissive look on Alex. Then she smirked and turned back to Kara. "I know you don't need warnings. But don't waste your time on that one. Issues. Not your type at all."

Alex's face had gone red, her fists were clenched, all shame and humiliation.

As if at the click of a switch,  Kara's vulnerability was gone.  F ury filled  her . How  _dare_ she treat Alex like that? Kara  smiled at the woman, coldly, and looped an arm around Alex' s waist , dr a w ing her in, touching the pressure point at Alex's waist that made her  curl up and  melt against Kara's side. With the stiletto heels and Kara using every inch of her natural height, Alex barely had to slouch to tuck her head under Kara's chin.

"I don't need warnings ," Kara said ,  her tone as hard and cuttingly cold as she could make it . " Alex  is mine. She  has been mine for the last twelve years. I know exactly what she's capable of, and what she's allowed to share with other people. If you were disappointed, it is because what you tried to take is reserved for me. "

The woman's eyes went wide. This time, when she looked at Alex, her face was ugly with jealousy. "I'm sorry for interrupting," she said, and disappeared into the crowd.

Alex was still in Kara's arms, her pulse rabbiting away, her breathing rough and audible, the scent of her arousal tinting the air, imbuing it with color.

"You slept with her?" Alex asked, her voice shaking.

That was unfair.  "You did too."

Alex huffed out a weak breath. "I tried. I-- I panicked when she tied me up. I couldn't-- not after everything."

"Of course not." Alex got herself kidnapped too often for Kara's taste. She wrapped Alex up tighter, not happy for the reminder.

Alex went soft and quiet in her arms.

"I don't--" Alex's voice was barely audible. "I don't know you like this."

Kara let her fingers tangle in Alex's soft sleek hair. "Yes, you do. No one else does, but you do."

Alex was quiet. Was she thinking of the grieving and still arrogant child in her room? Or of the proud, megalomaniacal Kryptonian on drugs who dismissed her, broke her arm and her heart ? Everyone else said 'it's not you.' Only Alex knew how much it was, how much  of Kara was  made of  all the things she had chosen to keep secret.

"Yeah," Alex said, even softer. "I guess I do."

She kept leaning into Kara, slipping a finger into the belt loop on Kara's pencil skirt and tugging lightly, affectionate.

Alex knew her, even the dark bits, and loved her anyway.

Kara could tell her, right now.  _I don't want you to date. I don't want you to find someone, to marry them and have children. I don't want you to have a life that is outside of mine. Other people, I don't care, I don't mind if they find happiness outside of me, but not you. I don't want that for you._

_I want you to be only mine._

But there were too many unanswered questions for her to risk it. Perhaps, in a play session, if Alex had acquiesced to being her submissive, she could predict how Alex would respond. Maybe she would pale, startled, and stare, wide-eyed. The way she stood, the way her head tilted, it would be alert, obedient.

Kara would reach out and touch her cheek. Microscopically, Alex would lean into the touch, her body relaxing. Alex's voice would shaky, words coming out as if she could not believe this was real and wanted to be able to withdraw them, to pretend her dream-self had spoken, because surely this world could not be real. _You know I am._

But Alex wasn't her submissive, wasn't  _hers_ . And Kara couldn't take her.

She had to admit that.  Alex held the power here. That was the trouble with wanting to own someone. You couldn't own a person and love them at the same time. Not unless they wanted to be owned, unless they chose it.

She loosened her grip, settling Alex back onto the bar stool beside her, leaning back to signal the bartender for another drink. "You don't hate me?" Kara asked. "Even though I want to be bad sometimes?"

Alex rolled her eyes. "Hooking up isn't  _bad_ . It's just a little sleazy. Don't go clubbing as Supergirl, okay, if you want to keep your squeaky-clean persona."

Kara snorted. "Don't worry. I know how to wear a mask."

Alex nudged her shoulder gently, giving her a soft look. "I know you do. "

The bartender came over, listened to orders and refilled their glasses.

" I guess you're bi now?" Alex said, over her whiskey and soda--mostly soda. Kara could tell she felt unbalanced. Nowadays, the more out of control she felt, the less she wanted to drink.

Kara shrugged. "Something like that." In the end, they were all humans that she was attracted to. A Daxamian was as close to normal as it got, and how her mother would have cringed at that. "Pan," she said finally. It could include aliens too.

"Nice," Alex said.  She clicked their glasses together. "To the queer Danvers sisters, cutting a swathe through the scene in National City."

Kara laughed softly, shook her head. She wouldn't be back. She knew now, that having this didn't mean having Alex.

Alex was her own. She had to accept that.

She took a sip and tasted the drink Alex had designed for her, when Alex was still getting excited about beer, and Kara had always felt left out, like she was barely holding on to living in this world, like it could just push her out if she stopped struggling .  Alex had interviewed Kara about her favorite flavors and run taste tests and altered variables and hypotheses. Her scientific concern had  reminded Kara of her parents on Krypton . Alex had felt like home.

"It's funny," Alex said, offering her a smile, a little amused, a little wry. "You defending me from that woman by claiming me as your\-- sub, or whatever. I've hooked up with people who liked to do that, and it's fun, but it's not . . . anything really. But when you said I was yours\--" Alex shrugged lightly, but she'd turned her head away, shoulders untensing, gaze disappearing into the shadowy center of the club. "--it felt like I'd found that thing I've been looking for."

###


End file.
